Woodrow students in Paris. Photo courtesy of Micah Crissey.

Some Woodrow students are in Paris this week for a film competition.

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Twenty students in the school’s IB curriculum who are involved in the film program traveled to Paris to participate in the “Clash of the Titans” competition. Woodrow is the only school in Paris; the rest of the teams, from California, Hong Kong, Argentina, Qatar, Australia, China and Mexico, are competing virtually. Three teachers are there with the students.

The games began today. Each of Woodrow’s teams — four groups of five students — selected two genres from this list: action/adventure, comedy, sci-fi, drama, horror, romance, mockumentary, thriller/suspense, coming of age, crime and fish out of water. Each team has a director, screenwriter, cinematographer, editor and sound designer. In the next 48 hours, they’ll hire students at the American School in Paris as actors, travel around the city to find places to film, shoot and edit the footage and add music and sound to produce a short film. It must fall within at least one of the genres the team selected.

Chris Renaud, who created the minions from Despicable Me, began the event with a keynote speech.

Woodrow students raised $35,000 through donations and a corn hole tournament to go on this trip.

Last year, Woodrow’s white team was a top finalist in the acting, sound design and screenwriting categories.

Woodrow parent Micah Crissey, whose daughter is on the trip, says the school was first invited to the competition three years ago and won third place then.